I know that there are many different methods of fishing wire and I am always interested in hearing how other electricians do it. In this instance I am curious how you get a cable from the wall into the ceiling when you have no access from above. For example, you need to instal a fan, chandelier, or set of high hats in the ceiling of a room on the first floor of a 2-story house. You run a feed up into a switchbox in the wall from the basement, now you have to go from the switchbox in the wall up into the ceiling.
I've seen various ways, everything from cutting a huge hole in the wall big enough to fit an entire drill as well as a hole in the ceiling big enough to get your whole arm in- to notching the sheetrock out and running the romex against the side of the top plate and then mudding right over it.
So how do you do this?
well, around here, most everything is slab on grade.... so your options are limited.
regardless of cameras, snoodle sticks, jack chain, stud detectors, acts of a benevolent
deity, and sacrificing a chicken on the hood of your service vehicle, you probably are
gonna have to cut some holes.
i first explain to the customer the exact nature of the problem, and what must
be done to solve it, and that i will leave the walls closed up when i'm done, and
i can recommend an excellent drywall taper i've know for most of my life.
if it's can lights, sometimes a couple extra can lights can eliminate patches in
the ceiling.... i also make better money filling holes in the ceiling with light bulbs
instead of cookies... and the cost of two can lights can be less than patching
and painting a ceiling.
once it's obvious it's not going to be a markless install, i use a holesaw the same
as if i was going to cut a can light in. it's easy to replace the cookie with a 1 x 3
lath a foot long for backing, you can put the same cookie back in, and orient
it to match, and 20 minute hot mud makes the ugly go away. use a razor knife
to clean up the paper fuzz on the edge of the hole, and a good vacuum to leave
it as clean as you found it.
i was going one across an interior partition wall, to feed a switch off a plug,
using a diversibit, and all was going well, and i just had a funny feeling....
i'd gone thru 3 studs, and was about to go for four, and stopped and found
the end of the bit with a good stud locator that can pick up metal, and
opened the wall... the fourth stud had a 3/4" copper water line in it, in the
middle of the house, going down to feed a manifold at the bottom of the bay....
i'd a killed it for sure.
i've also seen where flexie bits have wrapped up 3 or four pieces of romex in
an ugly ball.
i've got a ridgid camera, that will work with up to four 6' extensions, so it's good
for 25 feet.
the tools i've found most useful for snoodling things where they don't want to be
snoodled are.....
cheapo stud finder. i have an old zircon i swear by. $15
milwualkee godzilla stud finder. $400
jack chain.
magnet roller, and magnets to pull string down walls. $70
couple strong magnets for finding drywall nails and screws for locating studs $10
6" cookie cutter with dust catcher. $80
fein tool with cheap cutters, not the expensive fein blades. $500 with some blades
ridgid see snake, with two six foot extensions, about $1k with extensions
festool T-18 battery drill with the smallest 90 degree chuck you'll ever see,
and the most powerful battery drill. $625
festool cleantek lead and asbestos rated shop vac, about $500
a lucky rabbits foot. $priceless.
and to the guy who has never hit anything, my experience was that after spending
4 months fixing stub ups in a post tensioned hotel... 600 hours of nothing but
repairing and chipping around post tension cables with a hilti te 52, i mentioned to
my foreman at lunch that if i was going to break one of those cables, i'd a done it
by now, didn't he think?
about 20 minutes after lunch, i broke my first, and only post tension cable in 33 years
of work.
pride goeth before the fall, and not very far before, in my experience. good luck.
i've i've got $6k worth of wallpaper, i go get wireless piezo powered stuff. they can afford it.